History of the Software Craftsmanship Manifesto

I would like to prelude this with an assurance that this is not the history
of the software craftsmanship. Rather, this is just a
brief history of
Software Craftsmanship Manifesto.

It started when Uncle Bob's keynote speech last year at Agile 2008.
Uncle Bob proposed an amendment to the Agile Manifesto titled: Software Craftsmanship
over Crap. Now, the manifesto, to my knowledge, was never changed. However,
the software craftsmanship community started to become more active.

The actual manifesto started with a summit on Software Craftsmanship in
Chicago, on December 13, 2008. There we discussed what it means to be a
craftsman and an apprentice and so forth.

We spent the afternoon discussing who the document would be written for, what
the contents of it would be, if the document already existed, and if it
needed to exist at all. The attendees deserve a lot of credit on getting
these ideas started, and they are listed below.

On a whiteboard, we wrote the first version of the manifesto and all the
attendees signed it. For a few months afterwards, we talked about it on the
Google group, discussing the various ideas put forth at the summit.

Then, in February, Doug Bradbury wrote an email called “The new Left
Side” which started to get the values and wording which was refined
into the actual Software Craftsmanship Manifesto. There was a debate about
how the agile manifesto and the software craftsmanship manifesto that was
instrumental in moving forward with the manifesto.

You can read these threads at the software
craftsmanship google group. They start with “The new left
side” by Doug Bradbury and “Right side, revisited” by Scott
Pfister. It was a fascinating conversation, which spawned the final language
of the manifesto.

So, the question that was asked on the software craftsmanship mailing list
and in the twitterverse, is “Why a software craftsmanship
manifesto?”

Well, if you will permit me to give an existential answer, it is because the
list has 1771 signatories as of this writing. That many people now know each
other as craftsmen in some context. They know they can talk as craftsmen,
and hopefully move forward in our industry as craftsmen.

Let me use some other answers to the question to give another perspective:

“As of today, there are over 1500 signatures on the Manifesto. 1500
people are fighting against crap code. Those who have been
fighting crap code now know that they are not alone in their
fight. Those who write crap code now know that there are 1500
people fighting against them.” —Micah Martin

“By becoming a vocal community, publishing a manifesto, beginning work on
establishing principles and concrete schools of thought, we are creating a light that
new developers can see. Those who are really interested can more easily find us, talk
to us about apprenticeships, meet companies that actively engage in craftsmanship
activities (apprenticeships, journeymen programs, etc.). In some cases, this will
introduce them sooner to these ideas, hopefully saving some from the frustrations they
can face in a different situation.” —Corey Haines

Here‘s a small sampling of the people who have signed the Software
Craftsmanship Manifesto to date: